August 16, Ellsworth AFB, SD to Warren AFB, WY

Today the highlight of the day was Custer State Park in SD. Ton noted that we were only 30 miles from the park and it had some spectacular views and animals to view.

Enroute to the park and we did a drive by Mt. Rushmore but decided not to stop as we got a couple of pictures from the highway and the whole thing felt a little too Disneyland for us. On the way out though we saw a mom and baby mountain goat right by the road.

Going into Custer State Park on the Needles Highway we saw a sign saying low/narrow tunnel, 10’6” high and 9’ wide. I told Ton we were going to test the accuracy of Marks height measurement, we made the tunnel easy, but later came upon another tunnel surrounded by cars taking pictures of the entrance. This one was marked 12’ high and 8’6’ wide. We pulled in the mirrors and squeezed thru. Today was one of the days when the Tiger concept really proved itself.

As we drove thru the park we spotted a lot of Pronghorns which in South Dakota have a little different coloring than the ones we saw in Oregon earlier. Later we saw some “wild burros” that were pretty much tame and great beggars. The scene with the Burros walking right up to cars and sticking there noses in to get food reminded me of old pictures you saw of Yellowstone with Bears begging by cars. I guess that is the difference between National Parks, and State Parks. As we were leaving the park Ton commented that we did not see the large Bison herd that is resident in the park. Just as she finished saying that we came around a corner and ran into a herd of about 100 Bison using the same road to move from one pasture to another. After about twenty minutes of integrating ourselves into the Bison herd they finally got to where they were going and left the road. Happily Ton got some nice closeups of Bison as we moved with the herd.